Oregon close to requiring insurers to pay for abortions

The Oregon Senate voted Wednesday to require insurance companies to cover abortion and other reproductive health services at no cost to patients. The bill, already passed by the House, now goes to Gov. Kate Brown for her signature.

Oregon would become the second state, after California, to require private insurers to cover all abortions. New York also requires insurers to cover abortions deemed by a doctor to be medically necessary.

In Oregon, the Democrat-backed measure passed 17-13 along party lines, after a lengthy and at times emotional debate on the Senate floor.

House Bill 3391, which will cost the state an estimated $10 million, will also require insurance plans to cover contraception, post-partum care, and screenings for sexually transmitted infections and cancers of the reproductive system. Under it, the state would reimburse providers who offer reproductive health care to undocumented immigrants.

The bill exempts religious employers and insurers who do not currently cover abortion, such as Providence Health & Services. It would require the Oregon Health Authority to create a program to provide no-cost abortions for individuals whose health plans don't cover the procedure.

"I have seen the difference between what a poor woman can get and one that has financial means to get birth control and health services," she said in a statement.

The floor debate Wednesday focused largely on the abortion component of the bill, with Senate Republicans arguing that state taxes should not go towards a procedure some Oregonians are morally opposed to.

Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend, and other Republican senators gave impassioned pro-life arguments. They cautioned the bill could end up funding sex-selective abortions, late-term abortions or abortions for minors without parental notification.

Senate Republicans issued a statement after the vote calling the bill "nothing more than a political statement and a political gift card to Planned Parenthood that brought unnecessary drama and divisiveness to the end of the legislative session."

"Unintended pregnancies can lead to greater social service costs down the line," Devlin said in a statement. "Lack of preventive care for sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy and other things leads to costly treatments later."